PROVIDENCE – Charlie Kroll, founder of the software development firm Andera Inc., has been named a finalist for auditing giant Ernst & Young’s annual New England Entrepreneur of the Year award.

Kroll, 31, is one of 35 entrepreneurs in New England in the running for the 23rd annual Entrepreneur of the Year awards, which Ernst & Young bills as “the world’s most prestigious business award for entrepreneurs.” The regional winner will be announced at a gala on June 16 at the Boston Marriott Newton in Newton, Mass.

“It feels great to be a finalist,” Kroll told Providence Business News in an e-mail. “I’m not getting my hopes up for winning, since the other finalists all deserve to win, but it’s a great honor to have gone this far.”

The winners of the regional awards will go on to compete for Ernst & Young’s national Entrepreneur Of The Year honors, which will be presented in November at an event in Palm Springs, Calif., hosted by Jay Leno.

Previous national winners have included Dell Inc. founder Michael Dell, Starbucks founder Howard Schultz and Southwest Airlines’ Herb Klleher.

Kroll said he was nominated by Merrill W. Sherman, president and chief executive officer of Bancorp Rhode Island, who herself was named New England Entrepreneur of the Year in Financial Services by Ernst & Young in 2001.

Kroll founded Andera, which develops software that banks use to let customers open new accounts online, in 2000 while he was still a student at Brown University.

In 2005, Kroll, a New York City native, was named New England Young Entrepreneur of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration. Last year he was named one of PBN’s 40 Under Forty.